Thomas Kinkade was born in Sacramento, California in 1958. He spent one summer on a sketching tour with a college friend and afterwards produced the instructional book, The Artist's Guide to Sketching. The book's success landed the two artists at Ralph Bakshi Studios to create background art for the animation feature, Fire and Ice. After the film, Kinkade began earning a living as a painter and is now one of America's most collected living artists. He has also written numerous books including Lightposts for Living and the Cape Light series.
Roger Joseph Ebert was born on June 18, 1942 in Urbana, Illinois, and died on April 4, 2013. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was editor of the Daily Illini. He is best known for his film review column in the Chicago Sun Times since 1967 and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies. After Gene Siskel's death in 1999, Roger Ebert teamed up with Ruchard Roeper for the television series Ebert and Roeper and The Movies which began airing in 2000. Ebert's movie reviews were in more than 200 newspapers in the U.S. and worldwide by Universal Press… Syndicate. He wrote more than 15 books, including his annual movie yearbook which was a collection of his reviews for that specific year. He became the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize. In June 2005, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; he was the first professional critic to receive this award. He received honorary degrees from the University of Colorado, the AFI Conservatory, and the School of Art Institute of Chicago. Ebert died on April 4, 2013 at age 70. He had lost his voice and much of his jaw after battling thyroid and salivary gland cancer.